Happy Birthday, Mom!

The Ethel to my Lucy, the Sophia to my Dorothy, the Lorelai to my Rory, meatball to my spaghetti.

Happy Birthday, Mom! I'm sorry I can't be there to celebrate with you, but I know you'll read this and I hope it makes you smile. You're the most beautiful, strongest woman in the world to me and I love you more than anything. You're my best friend and I can't wait to see you and celebrate both of our birthdays with a little vino. ;) I hope you have a fantastic, stress-free day; here's to being one year older but looking ten years younger.

P.S. Remember, when everything is said and done, we always have each other. Love you!

I don't have any pictures of my mom on this computer or else I'd show you all Mommy Organically Me. Trust me, she's a dish!

Speaking of dishes, here is something quick I whipped up last night: cinnamon espresso granita! A granita is an Italian frozen dessert that is almost like a cross between an Italian ice and sorbet. It's icy but has a sort of fluffy consistency due to scraping it every half hour.


Cinnamon espresso granita
Ingredients
- 2 cups hot espresso (or double brewed coffee)
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 tbsp agave nectar

Instructions
- Add agave nectar to hot espresso and stir until dissolved.
- Pour espresso into a shallow baking dish and stir cinnamon stick around. Add the cinnamon stick and bring the mixture to room temperature.
- Once at room temp, remove the cinnamon stick. Cover with plastic wrap and place dish in the freezer.
- After 30 minutes, take a fork and scrape the sides and bottom of the dish to break up ice granules. Continue doing this every 30 minutes for about 3 hours. You'll know it's done when there is no liquid left and the mixture is nothing but coarse, almost fluffy looking ice granules.
- Scoop into your desired glass, dollop with (soy) whipped cream and enjoy!


Oh, and try not to eat it all at 10:30PM, like I did. I don't always make the best decisions late at night.

In other exciting news, I won a brownie contest for Raphsodic Co-op, my favorite vegan bakery, for coming up with the idea for a salted caramel turtle brownie. I won a free brownie, but unfortunately I had no way of getting to the bakery. Oh well, it was an honor to win and I'm sure it tasted delicious!

Blog announcement: I now have pages on the top of my blog, including a recipe page! I had a request from a reader and I realized I had a lot of recipes to organize, so now it's all there in alphabetical order. Check it out! I'm going to be adding more pages soon as well.